Saturday, December 28, 2013

AWashington Post Editorial called The
Christmas story, still captivating the world, published: December 24 stirred up some
discussion about the contemporary meaning of the holiday. They contrasted the story in radio “DAYS of old (1947 to 1956, to be exact)” as they called it when
the narratives were mainly:

“from
the Bible, mostly from the life of Jesus, presented with the urgent energy of
radio drama and the sort of background music, spirited dialogue and sound
effects that made it a good deal more compelling than Sunday school. It was
widely popular for a time

This pop-up style they
contrasted with a more enduring story of generosity, the need for shelter, the
feeling of home and a new start to things (throw in New Year’s). This universal
appeal:

“ is a tale with universal appeal extending
beyond any one faith or doctrine, a story of love and triumph over adversity
and also of humility, of the good lay in
their warmth, humanity and simplicity, …….an enduring reflection of both the
“comfort and joy” of the carol and also of the spirit expressed in a seasonal exhortation last week from
Pope Francis: “Let us act so that our brothers and sisters never feel alone.”

Washington Area Secular Humanist

HumanLight Party 2013

Yes, it seems as Alistair Cooke noted, "Washington's birthday is as close to a
secular Christmas as any Christian country dare come this side of
blasphemy."

There
were numerous responses to this more secular, humanist slant to the season. The
following from FL-Chet
represents a meme of a more traditional,
Christian view of the season.

The Christmas story without his claim that he
was fully God while being fully man is like Christmas dinner without the main
course. Yes, we can nibble around the table of the Christmas story and learn
from these truths. But to ignore his claims to be God come down to rescue us
leaves our hearts and lives wanting, and needing more.

Put
me on the side of the universal Humanist appeal of the season. Long
before there was Christianity we had people celebrating the winter solstice - the
shortest day and longest night of the year which falls (in the Northern hemisphere)
on December 21 or December 22. The
harvest is in but some plants & trees remain green thru winter and thus had a
special meaning for people in dark, cold times. Today homes in Western culture are
decorated with pine, spruce, and fir trees. In ancient times peoples also hung
evergreen boughs over their doors and windows (to keep away witches, evil
spirits, and illness after all the sun-god gets weak in winter) but this
seems mostly buried by the later Christmas story meme.

Washington Area Secular Humanist

HumanLight Party 2013

I
say let’s keep the non-spiritual side of the season alive with growing Humanist
memes about kindness and sharing along with traditions like HumanLight
and song. For the latter I like Vienna
Teng’s The Atheist Christmas Carol. It is by no means an atheist song, but rather
a Humanist one as is Ode
to Joy with its inspired message that 'all men shall be brothers'.

.

As
to seasonal wishes there are many that I like. One builds on Mary Ellen Chase’s idea, beyond
shopping malls and temples the winter celebration, people, is not a calendar date.
It is a state of mind and one in which children can be grateful to parents who
fill stockings and a natural sun that stays a minute or so longer each day.

"Keeping
a holiday spirit is good, but sharing it is better."after-- Arnold Glasow

Thursday, December 26, 2013

By Mathew GoldsteinIs quantum entanglement supernatural magic? We do not have to be a New Age mystic, or a fan of Chopra Deepak, to think so. We do not know the spin of a particle until we measure it, yet the instant we know it's spin we also know the spin of its entangled partner particle which could, in theory, be millions of miles distant. Naturalism's dependency on physicalism sometimes appears to impose too much of a constraint for a feasible explanatory framework. People turn to supernaturalism in part because they perceive naturalism as too restricted, and therefore too weak, a framework to explain our universe. Are they mistaken to do this? Can quantum entanglement be explained within the constraints imposed by naturalism?

Some intelligent and thoughtful people, such as philosophers Thomas Nagel, Massimo Pigliucci, David Albert, and others, express doubts that a naturalistic framework is sufficient. Some skepticism is indeed appropriate when dealing with the mysterious and the unknown, as is the case here. Nevertheless, contra the philosopher skeptics, and popular opinion, the better answer is that naturalism is likely sufficient, and one way to illustrate this is to highlight one such possible explanation.

Physics has sometimes advanced with "what if" thought experiments imagining extreme conditions that would be difficult to replicate in a laboratory, such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing a light beam, leading to Special Relativity. Two physics heavyweights, Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advance Study in Princeton, and Leonard Susskind of Stanford University, California, recently asked this question: What would happen if two black holes are entangled?

First, they showed that space-time tunnels emerge from quantum theory when two black holes are entangled. It's as if the wormhole is the physical manifestation of entanglement. When space-time curves we experience that curvature as gravity. Anytime an N dimensional object curves, it enters an N+1 dimension. Given that space + time = 3+1 = four dimensions, gravity evidences a fifth dimension. Such warping of space-time can produce space-time tunnels, or wormholes.

The two physicists then extended this idea to a single black hole and its Hawking radiation, resulting in a new kind of wormhole. This wormhole links a black hole and its Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation is the result of the black hole absorbing the anti-particle and emitting the particle of the virtual particle - anti-particle pairs that are otherwise constantly bubbling into and out of existence in the vacuum of space.

Julian Sonner of MIT, Kristan Jensen of the University of Victoria, and Andreas Karch of the University of Washington decided to try to determine what happens with pairs of entangled particles. To see what geometry may emerge in the fifth dimension from entangled quarks in the fourth, these scientists employed holographic duality, a concept in string theory. They found that what emerged was a wormhole connecting the two quarks, implying that the creation of entangled quarks simultaneously creates a wormhole.

So while entangled particles are far apart in four dimensional space-time, they could be joined together, fragilely, in the fifth dimension. Spooky action at a distance may not be what seems, it could be an illusion from our inability to directly observe the curvature of space-time. We witness the curvature of space-time indirectly by its products of gravity, black holes, and quantum entanglement (physicists usually consider quantum mechanics to be more fundamental than gravity, so they may say that the curvature of space-time is a product of quantum entanglement).

We cannot properly have confidence that this quantum entanglement with wormhole scenario is true without more favorable empirical evidence. But even if this hypothesis proves to be false, the fact remains that a strictly naturalistic framework is rich with possibilities for explaining our universe. The intuition that a naturalistic framework lacks the power to explain how our universe works repeatedly turns out to be mistaken. We do not need to turn to supernaturalism to explain how our universe works. With effort, time, observation, and ingenuity we continue to make progress naturally.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

By Mathew GoldsteinThe new Political Action Committee for non-believers endorsed six candidates for Congress in 2014. The Freethought Equality Fund was launched by the American Humanist Association's Center for Humanist Activism in September. Two of the candidates, Carolyn Tomei of Oregan and Juan Mendez of Arizona, are secular humanists. The other four are Jared Polis of Colorado, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Bobby Scott of Virginia, and Lee Rogers of California.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Labels, religious or otherwise, can lead to misperceptions, confusion, stereotyping, overgeneralizing, unfairness, muddled thinking, and blockages to cooperation and social justice advances. Let's look at just one example, the question of Catholics and moral issues. Many people are under the impression that Catholics blindly follow official church teaching. But it just is not so.

Every six years beginning in 1987 the liberal National Catholic Reporter has sponsored a study of Catholic beliefs and practices, "Trends in Sources of Moral Authority". The poll question was this: "Who should have the final say about what is right or wrong? Church leaders? Individuals? Or both?" on the following five subjects: divorce and remarriage, abortion, sex outside marriage, homosexuality, and contraception. (Data from the 12/20/13 issue of NCR)

In 1987 on all five questions an average of 26% said the church. By 2011 the average had dropped to 16.2%. As for individuals having the final say, here are the figures from 1987 and 2011 on these specific issues: divorce and remarriage, 31% to 47%; abortion, 45% to 52%; sex outside marriage, 42% to 53%; homosexuality, 39% to 57%; contraception, 62% to 66%. The average shift from 1987 to 2011 was from 43.8% to 55%. In other words, over half of Catholics polled had essentially the same positions as humanists and other non-Catholics, disagreeing with Vatican dogma. About 1/4 said that both should have the "final say", but that makes no sense to me.

Other polls have shown that in actual practice, over 90% of sexually active Catholics have used contraception and the Catholic abortion and divorce rates are similar to those of non-Catholics. NCR also noted that only 1/4 of Catholics attend church services weekly, 78% favor comprehensive sexuality education in public schools, and 54% believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Shifting focus on the subject of stereotypes, I might note that there are atheists who oppose the right to choose on abortion, who do not support church-state separation, and who do not oppose government forcing all taxpayers to support religious private schools.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

By Mathew GoldsteinA press release summarizing the latest Harris poll results on the religious beliefs of United States residents; shows a continuing move away from superstitions and supernaturalism and towards skepticism and atheism. The biggest increase since 2009 was among the "not at all religious", which increased from 15% to 23%. Those who are "absolutely or somewhat certain there is no God" increased from 13% to 16%. The percentage who either do not believe in God (16%) or are unsure (also 16%) increased from 26% to 32%. The disbelievers and non-believers are younger, better educated, more male, less racially black, and less Republican, on average than the population as a whole. A small counter-trend towards supernatural belief is evidenced by a greater likelihood for younger people to believe in witches, ghosts, and reincarnation than older people. Presumably, older people are more inclined to reject witches, ghosts, and reincarnation because those beliefs conflict with the traditional Abrahamic religious beliefs that they are more inclined to take seriously. The steady trend away from religion and supernaturalism in the United States is showing no signs of slowing down, but three fourths self identify as theists (down from over four fifths at the start of this century).

As debates of this kind go this was as polite as it
probably gets. Certainly there fewer pyrotechnics as with the brothers Chris and Peter Hitchens
debate or one of Dawkin's debates. Here the speakers were not kin, but still familiar with
each other from past conversations. They showed a degree of respect for each
other in the midst of a congenial audience made up of people are both sides of
the issue, but liberal minded. Indeed at times the most heat
came from intense efforts by assigned moderators to keep the 2 speakers to 5
minute time constraints. Still, it wasn't as intentionally humorous as a religion-atheist
debate among comicsJamie Kilstein& John
Fugelsangon "Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell."

The event started with each side explaining their organizations
and what they stand for and who they were allied with. Perry could point to the
UU values from the Enlightenment - “Freedom, Reason and Tolerance.” Don Wharton faced with a liberal stance took
a clever tactic of emphasizing secular, humanist & scientific positions and
alliances such as the AHA and DC Coalition of Reason,
rather than starting with atheist ones. Indeed for most of the early debate it might
have been termed Religion vs. Secularism.

In the 2nd round each side staked out some additional
territory. King expanded from the
Enlightenment to what he at times called a Modern or Post-Modern Religion. He used relativism to jumps over the hard
search for truth with a string of statements that- “absolute truth does not exist". Realities are instead multiple, they are subjectiveand dependent on
an individual's worldview of framework (Drat
we should have never spent the time trying to convert those Indians). The Deacon could gesture to this idea and
rattle off some thinkers but his main thrusts came with statements like:

Religion asks the question of meaning. It’s been around a long time…Religion is not
so much a set of beliefs as a set of language and symbols about what is unknown
or transcendent.

This idea of religion knowing something about the unknown
might have generated calls for explanation, but we weren't in the Q& A so the
conversation moved on from this very sticky foundational point. It’s the type
of thinking that is hard to make progress against at time limited debates. You can choose to address 3-4 of the
arguments made but if you try to pick up this one it will consume all your
time. It’s a very asymmetrical situation
and I give Don high marks for navigating these obstacles. Faced with this
choice when he had the floor he countered King with a simple question of:

“what is real? and ‘this is self delusion’, ‘let’s
define what is real.”

(See my
blog on myths for some discussion of delusions. Rational analysis for the masses, alas, remains an
unfulfilled Enlightenment goal.)

Perry’s response was to cede the floor a bit and retreat from
knowing.

“Can any of us know what is
real?” “How did it all begin?”

Not a great response from an “Enlightenment fan” but such
stances postponed the issue till later in the debate when there was more time
for the important issues on the human capacity to know. If you draw on thinkers
of the past I like for example, Heraclitus 500 BCE whose stance on how human
understand reality included (Paraphrased by John Sowa, 2003):

“Everything is in flux. But
what gives that flux its form is the logos; the words or signs that enable us
to perceive patterns in the flux, remember them, talk about them, and take
action upon them even while we ourselves are part of the flux we are acting in
and on.”

These rhetorical questions can be taken on with a gesture
to that part of Science that studies human cognition. What aspects of Science do you believe in and
what limits do you set and why? Is continental
drift “real”? Doesn't seem likely, but
it now seems pretty certain along with mass extinctions, comets that hit the
earth, supernova and quarks. I prefer knowing the knowable, rather than
faithfully “knowing” the permanently mysterious unknown.

If Deacon King could wave at being compatible with
Science, Don could ask “What does that mean?” And he could point to Epicurus and the problem of evil which provides it own
big discussion area that is hard to take on. Each side had some of their
favorite zingers. Probably Deacon King
had more such as:

“There is no conflict
between Religion and Evolution….but Dawkins knows nothing about Religion!” or

“UU stands for the
underdevelopment of arrogant atheists who are intolerant of Religion.”

“What do I mean by
faith? It’s personal.” (Ah, I guess not subject to scientific study? Calling doctor Freud......)

It’s mean to tell kids
there’s no Santa Claus.”

The Deacon did have a host of easy to believe and popular
wisdoms to throw into the debate and could bring the sides together with a
cheery:

“The enemy is dogma in any form.”

While
agreeing on many issues of social tolerance points of real disagreement were to
be found as the conversation continued.
Don argued that Religions convince people that they are members of a
moral tribe and neuroscience supports this maximization of tribalism, which has
its downsides. See Us
Against Them: How Tribalism Affects the Way We Think .

Don threw in ideas relating religion and the idea of
purity and authority figures from Jonathan Haidt's studies
of intuitive, moral underpinning as political attitudes:

This moral foundation, which
involves having compassion and feeling empathy for the suffering of others, is
measured by asking people how much considerations of "whether someone
cared for someone weak and vulnerable" and "whether or not someone
suffered emotionally" factor into their decisions about what is right and
wrong. As you can see, liberals score considerably higher on such questions.
But now consider another foundation, "purity," which is measured by
asking people how much their moral judgments involve "whether or not
someone did something disgusting" and "whether or not someone
violated standards of purity or decency." Conservatives score dramatically
higher on this foundation.

But as we veered onto social science these too were subjects
that did not land as conversational topics for any length of time. The
impression I got was that Don’s atheist-secular side was grabbing more of the
space of the argument. If this were a
chess game the early openings had been played and Don had major pieces
deployed.

Deacon Perry was playing a different game though and
chose not to get into evidence from social and neuroscience.

“Never say “delusions” when
talking to a faith-based community,”

A good line enjoyed by the audience. I guess a comeback
might be:

“Don’t say ‘take it on faith’ when talking to
an empirical science audience.”

Before we knew it the Deacon was on a different tactic. He ceded the territory of being critical of the
Bible, but within faith. To him the
Bible is a pre-modern document, but it is the source of divine inspiration
(take it on faith, I guess). As
Christians we should only look at the “good stuff.”: I should note here that
Deacon King seems to talk about the Bible mostly in terms of the New Testament.

OK, I’ve heard this inspiration talk before and the
question that comes up in my mind is that there are separate criteria to judge
what is “good” in this or any other book.
We don’t need religious criteria for this. We've golden an silver rules for quite a while. We might agree to call the
criteria “humanistic.” That would be
good to agree on or even discuss.

What was discussed was Don’s point about beliefs from
groups like Christian Scientists. How do we confront the absurdity of their
truth claims? Perry said “we are trying to liberalize them.” He again fell back on the claim that there is
important truth in the Bible.

Don’s chess game advanced a notch again and moved to the
claim of life after death, “It’s a problem.” Group leaders use this promise to impose their
interests and notions of ethics on the community. It’s a delusion and akin to
people deluding themselves about climate change. Perry responded, “It has great
value.”

This exchange opened the doors a bit to the societal
value of Religion and the related issue of who do we blame more for what has
gone wrong (e.g. cultural conflicts, war etc.). One thinks of Paul Kurtz
observation that:

“All
the great religions have grown by attacking those about them.

To the request that we need a more secular society the
Deacon could only suggest that Norway has more suicides than the US (not true
it turns out to be true – Norway
has about the same rate.
There is an effect for the absence of sun in winter which shows up in
many countries so Finland has a higher rate than the US).

Which cultures are happiest? Don suggested the secular, Scandinavian ones.
Again this is supported by UN survey studies based on not only longevity and
prosperity but also the belief you can count in others in times of trouble,
perception or corruption, generosity etc. There were many of these statistical
skirmishes throughout but Don was clearly in better command of the facts and
supported conclusions. Take the issue of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot all being “atheists.” Don was ready with refutations on Hitler’s
Catholic background, Stalin’s
Russian Orthodox upbringing and Pol Pot’s training in a Buddhist monastery. It was quite something to see vague claims
swatted down by Don’s knowledge. One might have added the inconvenient observation
that George Bush was “born again” and his wars killed hundreds of thousands.

It was equally interesting to see emotion-laden topics dealt
with.

When the idea of Hell was introduced as based on human
experience Don could parry that, yes, hellish experiences are real and we learn
from them but there is no supernatural Hell.

Modernity (Perry cited an atheist Freud and others here, well they aren't up to data but I guess were considered modern) and post modern ideas on religion was a topic
at times included the limitations of science – it doesn't have final answers.
One like look to A.C.
Grayling on this idea of certainty and knowledge. Yes, Science’s mindset is
always in progress and prepared to un-set and revise, but that mentality is a strength
rather than cock sure certainly that is fixed. Both Perry and Don cited the
value of critical thinking, but Perry urged that we not try to wipe out all of
tradition and world views found in myths.
They have a special truth one supposes and we should be informed by
people who came before us. Well yes,
remember those old natural religions that had thunder gods and credible displaysof religious devotion, such as:

It is part of reliably
transmitted religious demonstration showing a believers’ sincere faith to
observers and potential converts. I
could see some of this behavior at the debate. Perry would occasionally invite Don to come to
service – we hope to convert you yet. Not all of us have Don’s ability to groan or sigh away these entreaties in a persuasive way. A good example of this was Don's reaction to Perry's appeal to thinkers like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as a source of modern wisdom. Don had actually read Chardin and groaned noting that that Chardin had his own brand of confusion.

As a culture generating
species, we humans assimilate key information from our groups, and therefore
human brains probably have built incultural learning
biasesthat enable us to quickly pick up the culture around us (language too).
But a pre-conscious tendency to learn from others makes us vulnerable to being misinformed
if not duped. This has been called the “evil teacher problem” but remember
preaches are teachers). Evolutionary Psychologists speculate that we have
developed a defense. Human cognition is
equipped with something calledepistemic
vigilance. It’s a suite
of skills and preferences that guard against such manipulation by smooth talkers
among us. Better to be converted by
truth and not tolerate manipulation. And so on to the question of what should
be tolerated.

Perry did ask pointedly, “Can
you respect my mother who goes to church on Sunday?

Don’s response was a
re-post. Religions have more control
over women. And by the way should a LGBT person respect a homophobe? There are limits.

At this point there was
time for Q & A from the audience. One of the first ones was whether Don say
religion going away and what would replace it.
Don pointed to Sunday
Assembly as an alternative. Perry thought that we were in a Post-Christian
age and needed to redefine Religion but that it would always be with us. But a thoughtful UU member asked Don if he would be happy in effect with nothing by their total capitulation to the atheist idea.

Another question concerned
the possibility of an alliance between secularists and liberal religions like the
UUs. We might ally around climate change, peace and civil rights.

A question is whether we
can cooperate on these, while ideas of God and Religion are enshrined in laws. It's still a good question and yet this was a good, liberal minded debate.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

If you are looking for some chuckles let me recommend Mark Twain's 58-page story "The Diary of Adam and Eve", first published in 1893 and republished by Modern Library in 1996 and probably elsewhere as well. The usual Twain incisive humor.

And then there is the Mexican movie titled "Adam and Eve" that I watched in a cinema in South America many years ago. The film script came straight from the Book of Genesis, gravely intoned by a solemn narrator. The two non-speaking central characters were played by a French former Miss Universe and a Mexican wrestler. Modesty was maintained by Eve's rather long hair and by strategically placed bushes, of the botanical, not the political, sort (though the last two Bushes to hold high office in Washington and Tallahassee did have a kind of moldy putrescent aura).

Seeing this tale on the wide screen or through Mark Twain's eyes is enough to give pause to anyone thinking of taking the Scriptures literally.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The relation between religion and civilization has long
been discussed and there are many takes on it.
In Civilization and Its
Discontents Freud discussed the aims of civilized life and frustrations in
achieving pleasure and happiness.
Religions aren't always interested in the worldly aspects of pleasure
and can be at odds with that aspect of human aims. In The Future
of an Illusion, Freud lamented the typically religious person’s
preoccupation with what he termed the "enormously exalted father" figure
that was central to a God concept. The idea of placating this supposedly higher-power
being for some future reward seemed to Freud infantile and absurd. The frustrating
reality to Freud was, however, that the bulk of mankind hangs onto this
illusion.

In Big
Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict' Psychologist Ara Norenzayan
updates some of the speculation about the historical role of Religion in the
development of civilization. He provides
a long list of studies on particular points to suggest that the psychological
factors at play in the early connect are still with us. But like many things modern we might now know
how to achieve some of the positive influences in a secular society with less
of the downsides that religions can promote.

Norenzayan starts
with the observation that around 12,000
years ago or so human societies scaled up from small, tight-knit kin groups of
hunter-gatherers to what we have now - large, anonymously, co-resident & cooperative
societies. Emphasis on cooperative. In Big Gods, major portions of which can be
read
online, Norenzayan hypothesizes that normal individual cognitive
processes and cultural selection explains the success of very early religions
and something else – that increase in cooperation.Norenzayan’s idea is that there was something
that solved the problem of generating more cooperation. And he proposed that something
as simple as “God/someone powerful is watching – so be good!” was
it.Developed as part of religion in the
Neolithic period it enable more complex activities. Here is how one review put it.

Once human minds could
conceive of supernatural beings, Norenzayan argues, the stage was set for rapid
cultural and historical changes that eventually led to large societies with Big
Gods--powerful, omniscient, interventionist deities concerned with regulating
the moral behavior of humans. How? As the saying goes, "watched people are
nice people." It follows that people play nice when they think Big Gods
are watching them, even when no one else is. Yet at the same time that sincere
faith in Big Gods unleashed unprecedented cooperation within ever-expanding
groups, it also introduced a new source of potential conflict between competing
groups.

With a Big God whip ancient societies could solve
co-operation dilemmas much better, and as a result they expanded. Not necessarily
a new idea but Big Gods provides an elegant overview including real research
suggestive of how belief in Big/super-knowing, all powerful and very morally intrusive
gods emerged and influenced cooperation.

He has a nice summary called "The Eight Principles of Big Gods" whch are:

1. Watched people are nice people.

2. Religion is more in the situation than in the person.(more on this later)

4. Trust people who trust in God. (yes, you can't trust those none believes especially)

5. Religious actions speak louder than words.

6. Unworshipped Gods are impotent Gods. (the orignal way to kill a god, just talk up your own and invent commandments to do that)

7. Big Gods for Big Groups. (our God is bigger than yours so we are exceptional)

8. Religious groups cooperate in order to compete.

Evidence includes the Sunday
Effect of pro-social behavior. For Christians, reminders of religion
are typically more salient on Sundays than on other days of the week (and of
course at Christmas and Easter). One study looked at responsiveness to an
online charity drive over a period of several weeks. Christians and
non-believers were equally likely to give to charity except on Sundays. On that
day Christians are/were 3 times as likely to give. These results suggest that
the “religious situation” is more important than the “religious disposition.” There are a host of other studies showing
that self-reported religious people don’t help out in tasks more than secular
people. But is ideas of God are evoked
while playing word games. The game
innocently planted thoughts of God (divine, God, spirit) in some participants.
Other study participants played the same word game but without religious
content (cat, dog tree). The result in an evoked religious situation religious
participants do help more.

But there is a down side to this type of cooperation
because in group effects. These group effects are better seen in the later
first millennium BCE era of the Big Faith-Religions. This is 'Axial Age' (as Karl Jaspers called it).
Such Big Faiths built on Big Gods to further develop inside group cooperate. “Supernatural surveillance” by established Big
Gods helped early religions expand while sustaining social solidarity within
the group. The non-civilizing
down side is that it discourages cooperation with outsiders. His might be noted
as running as a theme in parts of the Hebrew old testament. Those other guys
are God’s enemies. So this type of
civilizing cooperation is limited and comes at a cost. It’s part of the
discontent with civilization. As Norenzayan
notes:

People who are going to
sacrifice for their co-religionists are the same people who are going to be,
under the condition of threat or conflict, intolerant or even violent to people
who are not of their own religion. Quote
from Interview

Speaking of Big God’s
enemies, some Psychologists have argued that concern with supernatural
surveillance also explains one of the most persistent but hidden prejudices
tied to religion: intolerance of atheists.Surveysconsistently find that in the United States, as well as in othersocieties with
religious majorities, atheists have one of the lowest approval ratings of any
social group. It makes sense. We
don’t believe that we are being watched from the clouds. How could we be cooperative or moral?

What’s the solution here? Well understanding is a start, but facts and
reasoned arguments are often resisted. Luckily we have real world
experimentation going on in more secular societies to show that human ingenuity
and understanding can engineer secular-based cooperation.

But Norenzayanincludes some warnings via 2 secular principles that follow the Big 8:

10. "Prosocial religions have one crucial advantage over secular ones - the demographic windfall of more children. And that religious advantage is the secularists' Achilles' heel." (p. 192) Its that Big God - Big Group idea again, so we have to be smart if not quite as big...

"Brilliantly samples the work of the leading thinkers of the European and American Enlightenments that culminated in our era's secular naturalism. Especially relevant are the sections by Locke, Jefferson and Madison that counter the regressive efforts by today's religious Right to lead us back to the Dark Ages.

"Edd Doerr, President of Americans for Religious Liberty and columnist for Free Inquiry"

That said, S.T. Joshi, editor of the Library of America classic Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales & Memoirs (880 pp, 2011), The Unbelievers and other books, here gives us a convenient selection of the writings of such notable 18th century Enlightenment authors as Meslier, Voltaire, d'Holbach, Kant, Hume, Bentham, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, Paine and Ethan Allen, together with brief introductions. A great addition to any library.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

By Mathew GoldsteinI recently listened to Deacon Perry King of Universalist National Memorial Church in D.C. explain and defend his religious beliefs during a mostly cordial public talk featuring him and Don Wharton of WASH. My understanding of his perspective is as follows: He described his denomination as representing a liberal Protestant Christianity that embraces the pluralistic Universalist notion that people from all religions qualify to go to heaven. He cites Paul Tillich's definition of god as the grounds of being, and he equates god with concepts like goodness and love. He considers it possible to be both an atheist and a Christian, and points out that some other people call him an atheist, although clearly he does not self-identify as an atheist. He appears to embrace faith as a valid alternative way of knowing, but then he claims his religious identity is not rooted in concrete beliefs, emphasizing instead that his religious identity is rooted in symbols, abstractions, and meanings. He asserts that the bible is an important source of wisdom and that Jesus has a special role, but he rejects trinitarianism He says he has read Sam Harris. He says he embraces a post-modernist outlook and rejects logical positivism. Social activism also has a central role, and he identifies the social activism as being motivated by Christianity and as being Christian in character.

For us secular humanists, deciding to join a public policy, or social activism, or humanitarian intervention, alliance with any other group centers around answering two questions: What public policy is needed and who else is advocating for that needed public policy? The evidence regarding global warming related public policy is different from the evidence regarding civic equality for LGTB citizens is different from the evidence regarding atheism versus theism. The religious belief identities of the other groups in the coalition is irrelevant, and it is counter-productive to exclude anyone from a public public advocacy coalition because of disagreements over unrelated questions, including religious beliefs. We would never tell Unitarian Universalists that as a pre-condition for working together on a particular issue of common concern it will be necessary for Unitarian Universalists to "show respect for us" by refraining from publicly advocating for Unitarian Universalist belief, or refraining from arguing against atheism, or refraining from advocating against any other conflicting and competing belief, or attending WASH meetings. We are entitled to insist on the same from them. Mutual respect is based on equality, and equality entails that everyone publicly advocates for their beliefs and associates only with who they choose without restrictions.

I am confident that I will never call myself a Christian or a post-modernist, never put faith front and center as a preferred method for justifying conclusions about how the universe works, and never put so much credence in an ancient text with so little substance to it. The UU Deacon's apparent denial that his religious identity is based on factual assertions (he was somewhat ambiguous here, he only denied he held "beliefs" and then gave examples of beliefs he did not hold that were all factual assertions) is inconsistent with his reliance on faith, since faith is only applicable in a context of reaching true/false conclusions about factual claims. Faith has no applicability to personal preferences or ethical commitments. Also, a denial that his religious identity is rooted in factual assertions is inconsistent with various factual assertions he made about the nature, or character, of god and the bible.

Apparently, from a post-modernist perspective, this distinction between factual true/false beliefs, ontological existence assertions as a distinct subcategory of factual assertions (to which logical positivism applies), personal preferences, and ethical commitments, is all blurred. Blurring these distinctions is convenient for those who want to avoid the constraints imposed by following the evidence. The distinctions between factual true/false beliefs, personal preferences, and ethical commitments are valid and important. Post-modernism is mistaken. Furthermore, insofar as his religious beliefs really do refrain from making any factual assertions it loses it's Christian character, contrary to his assertion that his church and it's beliefs are Christian.

Advocacy for atheism is easily accessible to everyone who uses the internet. The Huffington Post, as do other publications, has a religion section that features writers ably representing many different perspectives, including atheism. There are books promoting atheism published every month, and every year a few of these books sell well. No church can stop this from happening. We should never even consider agreeing to unilaterally curtailing public advocacy for atheism as a condition for joining public policy coalitions with anyone else. We are not pushovers, it would be wrong to capitulate to such double standards and intolerance. Yes to public policy, social activism, or humanitarian intervention coalitions with any group that shares any such goal with us. No to curtailing public advocacy for atheism or against religious beliefs. There is no contradiction here and we should never accept attempts by our competitors to impose one on us.

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Pope Francis's recent critique of Reaganonomics has caused many conservative Catholics to squirm a bit. Conservative NY Times columnist Ross Douthat, who often wears his Catholic religion on his sleeve, did that on Dec 1. He brought up the church's "social teaching" on something called "subsidiarity", which means governments should allow action on social justice issues to be handled on as local a level as possible, preferably by private organizations. That's a nice abstraction, but in the real world some problems are best handled on a national level and by government, like health care reform, though the experience of implementing the ACA (Obamacare) law allows some constructive state by state expeimentation, which has been successful in states like CA, KY, WA and CT.

But I have yet to hear Catholic conservatives criticize the public school privatization movement that has transferred much local control of public schools to interstate chains of charter schools that have generally done a worse job of educating that locally controlled regular public schools.

The church is silent about applying the "subsidiarity" principle to religion, which it prefers to concentrate in the hands of an unelected patriarchalist bureaucracy in Rome or a nation's capital, as regards, for example, the US bishops dictating to Catholic hospitals what they may or may not do with women with life- or health-threatening pregnancies. We will have to see what Francis is going to do about that, if anything.

And why not apply the principle of "subsidiarity" to women so that they can, at the most local level possible, make their own individual decisions about reproduction and health without meddling by politicians or clerics.

Douthat adds nothing but confusion by writing that "the most expansive welfare states can crowd out what Christianity considers the most basic human goods [?] -- by lowering birthrates [What? Overpopulation not a problem for everyone?] discouraging private charity [Huh?] and restricting the church's freedom to minister [?] in subtle but increasingly consequential ways." Wow, this guy trips over his own tongue a half a dozen times in one sentence.

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